Key to Success!

Before Grant could even react, Maximus' giant fist made contact with his face and he was once again sent flying through the wall that he had already passed through twice.

This time however, he didn't stop at just one wall, he flew straight through five more walls before finally coming to a stop embedded in the sixth.

[Mother fucker that hurts! It's like having my own oversized mana baby smack me around like I'm some toy! This is frustrating as fuck!]

{Grant, might I give you some advice? You would do best to take his teachings and words to heart. For The Path to take in a Spirit of another world and allow it to pass on to beings from another planet, the strength of that Spirit must be exceedingly powerful.

Maximus may very well be the catalyst for you to reach newer heights. And you need all the help you can get right now.}

[Yeah I've already figured that much out! I can tell his strength has been reduced to the level of my own mana, and yet it still feels like he hits harder than I ever could right now.

He must have some obscene control over his strength to pull that off.

I'm just pissed I can't seem to meet anyone normal these days!

I miss Ally... she never hit me...]

{I fear for humanity..}

Grant managed to pull himself out of the wall that had a nice outline of his body inlaid in it now and went crashing back through the walls he had just passed through before reaching the street where Maximus was standing.

With arms crossed and a pissed off look on his face, Maximus just stared down at the dust covered and frankly pathetic looking man in front of him.

"Look grandpa, I don't want to fight. I don't know who you're talking about when you say him, and frankly, I don't have the energy to deal with that right now. So save it for later.

Right now, what concerns me, is making sure this planet, MY planet, survives the invasion from god knows how many different species."

Maximus simply scoffed and continued to stand there with his arms crossed.

Grant briefly explained the predicament that the world was facing and the oddities that Skit and him had discovered about the planet while skillfully avoiding the fact that Skit was not only a member of the planet Renrarth but also Couzar's brother.

He also explained his own past and his history since The Path's emergence. He told him basically his entire story from the dog breaking into his apartment to his meeting with Spruce Springtree and beyond.

When he was finished explaining his situation, Maximus seemed to visibly relax.

"At least I know now why my spirit was passed on too you. You're not as worthless as you appear to be.

It's a crying shame that your planet was so peaceful before The Path's emergence though. If you had come from a planet where war and fighting were the norm, your foundation wouldn't be so utterly pathetic."

Grant wanted to refute, since war and fighting were common place on Earth, but he knew that Maximus wasn't referring to hot weapons.

As far as his foundation went however, he knew that Maximus was correct; his foundation was truly pathetic.

That just meant that he needed to work twice as hard as everyone else.

Eager to get started Grant asked Maximus how the training would progress and was told that their were frankly three ways they could go about it.

The first two seemed fairly obvious but the third one surprised him.

The first, Maximus could remain outside the body and guide Grant through demonstration and hands on training.

The second way was for Maximus to return to Grant's body and guide him from within, as he had done against the ant army.

The third was for Grant and Maximus to enter a space similar to the one that the Treants used to communicate.

Although the spaces would be similar, since this small world would be built upon Grant's own mana storage, expanding its size to be larger than needed would expend far too much mana and would be impossible to maintain for long.

The major upside to training in this manner however, would be that Maximus could mimic his full strength in combat rather than being hamstrung by how weak Grant's mana currently was.

"Hold on, you keep saying you're limited to your current strength because of my mana, what do you mean by that exactly?"

"Your mana purity would be more accurate. Since you are only an Enlightened Tier monster, your mana is not pure enough to draw out the full power of my soul, at least not externally.

If we fight in your internal world, I can simply mimic my real strength rather than actually wield it, if that makes sense."

Grant of course, didn't understand a word of that, but he wasn't about to tell Maximus so he gave a perfunctory, 'Yeah I totally understand'.

Which of course, Maximus knew was a lie, but ignored either way.

Although Grant was extremely curious about how strong Maximus truly was, the giant hunk of muscle refused to divulge that information at the time and used Grant's current strength as an excuse.

Something to do with, if I fight you at full strength, just the subtle air movement caused by me flexing my muscles would be enough to kill you; or so he said.

"Fine, since fighting you one on one seems to be pointless, why don't you stay out here until we use up half of my mana and then you can return to my body and guide me from within.

Shit that sounds weird to say.. I might as well just scream out, grandpa get inside of meeee!!!

That's equally mortifying.."

Maximus, who was finally starting to get a glimpse of who the man in front of him really was, wanted nothing more than to find a way to detach his spirit and run away.

Unfortunately for him though, he was going to be in this for the long haul. How long it truly would be, Maximus never could have imagined.

Since escape was not an option, Maximus went into strict instructor mode. He made sure that Grant prepared thoroughly for the fight to come since preparation was the key to success, or so he said.

Once Grant was prepared, Maximus suddenly reached out towards Grant and stole the Sword of the One True King from his back and rested it on his shoulder.

Unsurprisingly, Grant demanded that Maximus return his sword so that they could begin hunting but Maximus unceremoniously refused.

"The first step to building a foundation for using a sword, is to build a strong physical foundation!

You may be strong for your Tier and level because of the stats you have absorbed but you are pathetically weak when it comes to efficient movements and utilizing the strength you possess. You don't even use feints or deception in your fights!

The key to success is a strong foundation!

Not every problem can be solved by running right up to it and punching it with your full strength!"

Grant, rather than argue with the old man, decided that he would place his trust in him instead. He could only pray that Sherlock's evaluation as well as his own, for that matter, were not wrong about Maximus.

When Maximus saw that Grant had finally decided to accept his method of training, he gave out his first instructions.

"Okay, now go punch something with your full strength! The key to success is facing problems head on!"

It took a whole thirty seconds for Grant to go from being committed to wanting to have Maximus committed.

"How many 'keys to success' are going to be on my key ring by the time this is over you old fart?!

And you tell me problems can't be solved by simply punching with my full strength and then tell me to go punch with my full strength?!

Have you gone senile over all those years floating around in the darkness?!"

Rather than defend his teachings, Maximus simply punched Grant in the side of the head and sent him flying yet again.

Grant, seemingly expecting the reaction, had prepared to dodge the attack but failed to do so when Maximus finally struck.

"You can't even dodge a punch from someone using your own strength and you want to talk back to me?!

Being able to predict and adapt to a situation is the key to success!"

[Sherlock, can you just kill me now and end this all?]

{Is that also a key to success?}

Grant realized he was alone in this miserable situation. Even his ever present guide was taking shots at his sanity.

With no choice but to accept his fate, Grant tried his damnedest to absorb as much of Maximus' lunacy, or 'training', that he could.